Are you going to be putting many drives in it? How are you intending to mount them all. I don't think I'd want to load up all of those side mounted hard drives as it would reduce CPU and GPU cooler headroom and there's got to be some vibration coming in too even with soft mounting.

I would also think that with a largely positive pressure design with those 2 front fans that there would be more of a need for a fan filter behind the front panel. I'm sure that something could just be placed in front of the fans.

Are you going to be putting many drives in it? How are you intending to mount them all. I don't think I'd want to load up all of those side mounted hard drives as it would reduce CPU and GPU cooler headroom and there's got to be some vibration coming in too even with soft mounting.

I would also think that with a largely positive pressure design with those 2 front fans that there would be more of a need for a fan filter behind the front panel. I'm sure that something could just be placed in front of the fans.

One maybe two drives max. There is some room in the bottom of the case to mount one - may try soft mounting there.

I went for the Fractal for the positive pressure but the build quality isn't very good compared to the Antec cases I've had...

Fractal support is good though - they sent a side panel as the original was warped

Many of these cases are likely built by the same OEM. You can tell by looking at details like how the different metal sheets are joined together or how the corners are reinforced. Sharkoon also seems to have a couple of cases based on the same design. Anyway, like the others mentioned, it`s a decent design for the price but build quality is not spectacular, in fact it`s pretty similar to that of the Fractal Core.

Biggest disadvantage of the fractal version is the back fan: only 92mm instead of 120 in other clones€: Why would you need the sound proofing? Pick your parts carefully, drill down your fans and your done, imho.

Just an update here. Whilst looking for a reasonable cost quieter case I picked this one for a new build for an AMD FX system.I've not tried one before, it's actually a build for my Son and I'm replacing the now getting on quite a bit (but still ok) Antec Sonata original.

Never been too happy with the Antec for cooling.I expect to have this sometime this week, so I'll give forum members a run down if anyone else is thinking about buying the case. I've used quite a few makers, but things as they are I'm looking for a decent case, which isn't a bad price and has some effort put in regarding sound proofing.

For the money I don't expect miracles. But things as they are in Europe right now we have to watch our pennies a bit more and try to get more bang per buck!

I'll post some more information when the case arrives and I start the build.

This one will be no better. The two front fans draw air from the side vents, which are small and restrictive. And there's not even the option of a bottom fan - something that really annoys me in most cases. Especially with mATX in the traditional layout, a bottom fan is a perfect for cooling the GPU.

My question was not an indirect criticism, tim (sorry if you had that feel).

At any rate, as Ace of Sweeden does not seem to have a working site, I am looking for any first hand information about (without any official datasheet, even some basic info - such as which is the maximum height for the CPU heatsink - are actually unknown).

I have build a couple of Q200 systems. But not those Ace cases. Managed to fit an ETS40 from Enermax, but the clearance is really tight a few mm to the side panel left. HDD mountig is decent, if you have a drive with low vibration, but if you tinker a bit you can suspend 1 HDD getting rid of the original drive mounting.

Not much space for a overly large GPU card. And cabling is a mess like it used to be before bottom mounted psu became fotm. I do share Tim's view on the restricted front parts of the Eco, the QS uses a full mesh front.

IMHO the non restrictive front and the 120mm back fan makes the QS the superior clone, ideally suited for casual 1080p gaming rigs with a mid range CPU/GPU when budget is tight. For a few bucks more you'll get far better cases, but the QS can be made pretty quiet if you swap case fans, pick a decent cooler and quiet PSU/GPU.

Compared to a similarly sized Antek NSK-3480, it's such flimsy that you wouldn't believe it.

Any vibration is easily transmitted, so the stock fan and hard drive are much more loud than I expected, right out of the box.

With reference to the Antec, the cable management is fairly better: even if there is virtually no room behind the motherboard tray (and no cut out under the keep-out-zone, i.e. the CPU socket), the right depth let conveniently route every PSU cables under the hard drive cage, while four plastic anchors actually help quite a bit. Layout is thus enough neat, even if working inside that small room is still a pain (to be fair, a lot less than in the quoted Antec mATX minitower).

The hard drive bar cannot quietly host mechanical hard drives, even if the 3.5" can be decoupled: so if you need more than two hard drive and a SSD, it isn't well suited, and rotational speed higher than 5400rpm should be avoided.

With reference to the max allowed dimensions for the CPU cooler, in my experience the heatsink should be no more than 160mm tall (my Cooler Master tower nearly touches the side panel), and possibly no more than 135mm wide (otherwise it would be rather difficult to fit either the CPU heatsink and the PSU).

But above all I'm a bit disappointed about the relevant thermals, its cooling prowess: even with two 120mm intakes and one 120mm exhaust, in my opinion it's not able to cool *quietly* (so taking all fans under 800rpm) anything more than a modern IGP rig, while a CPU TDP well below the 95W marks will also help a lot: at any rate, in my experience an about 80W card is enough to put that Q200 in crisis, and even a positive pressure setup didn't help. Mind: it's being advertised as a budget gaming enclosure, but IME it can't game at all (neither quietly, nor safely).

Summarizing, probably a rather larger Fractal Define Mini would have been worked a lot better, and maybe even more cost effectively, in order to carry out a really quiet rig: as usual, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

I'd expect that the original Ace Ecco 250 were noticeably better with reference to vibrations, due to the sound proofing treatment which should dampen in some way those flimsy panels: on the contrary, as it has virtually no intakes, I'm really worried about the relevant cooling power (supposedly even lower than the Q200 one).

I'm sorry to read that the Advance has disappointed. The non-advanced did fairly well for the price and i have build one that is fairly quite, but not silent.

Some testing showed that the GPU temps improved when removing the slot cover beneath and blocking the mesh parts of the side panels with cardboard. Fans had to be decoupled with rubber sticks. I thought about dremeling out the fan grills, but the owner wouldn't let me

If you need more than 1 SSd and 1 HDD you're right, you'll need a different case.

tldr: Yes, it is cheap and flimsy, but you'll get a good base for a neat little system. But many other cases will be more silent (and bigger and more expensive) if budget allows.

I'm sorry to read that the Advance has disappointed. The non-advanced did fairly well for the price and i have build one that is fairly quite, but not silent.

Some testing showed that the GPU temps improved when removing the slot cover beneath and blocking the mesh parts of the side panels with cardboard. Fans had to be decoupled with rubber sticks. I thought about dremeling out the fan grills, but the owner wouldn't let me

If you need more than 1 SSd and 1 HDD you're right, you'll need a different case.

tldr: Yes, it is cheap and flimsy, but you'll get a good base for a neat little system. But many other cases will be more silent (and bigger and more expensive) if budget allows.

JFYI: after some weeks of tweaking and testing with the Aerocool QS-200 Advance, I was so lucky to end with a somewhat decent setup. It isn't really quiet, but sort of.

First of all, I have to admit I didn't get a clue on it, at first. Using a 125W CPU and a 100W GPU I thought to use some more fans than I was used to, hoping to drive them very low.

So I put three case fans, and I tried various setups: 2 intakes & 1 slower exhaust, 2 slower intakes & 1 exhaust, 2 exhausts & 1 intake, 3 intakes... obviously along with the GPU own fans, and turning each time the CPU cooler accordingly to the back fan configuration.

Nothing worked satisfactorily: temps under stress were almost terrible, while noise-wise it was definitely far from quiet. I used different fans: Alpenföhn, Aerocool, Cooler Master, Yate Loon, 3-pin, all PWM... always with comparable results.

So I gave it up: I dislodged any intakes (the most annoying noise sources, along with the VGA fans), and swapped the rear exhaust with a rubber decoupled Scythe Slipstream PWM.

I thought: if it cannot run cool, at least it could be a bit more quiet. And it was.

So, after tinkering a lot with SpeedFan, I was able to work out a custom fan curve to lower the noise of video card but remaining under 80°C on FurMark, and while the CPU cooler is never quick at recovery from stressing, nonetheless it also never overheat: oddily, reversing the airflow (turning the exhaust as intake, and turning the CPU heatsink) the VGA temps improve by some degrees, but the very same degrees are added to the CPU rise over ambient, and it's definitely not clearly preferable.

Well, the flimsy panels still have spurious resonances, even if I suspended with rubber the only mechanical disk drive, and being mATX the graphics is too close to the bottom (further subtle resonances), but after 6 hours of OCCT PSU test every fan (the case back exhaust, the CPU, the VGA and the PSU ones) runs under 700rpm, and Prime95 works about the same.

This rig still cannot love FurMark but, as I said, now it stays under 85°C with VGA fans running under 2700rpm and case fans under 900rpm (and under 80°C with fan spinning under 3000rpm, with other fans under 1000rpm): so it's not FurMark-proof. Maybe with an Accelero S1 Plus and another Slipstream PWM I can best those results, but in such a small mATX enclosure there's about no room to grow the current graphics assembly.

What puzzles me is that adding two intakes, I add a "considerable" amount of more noise, but not any huge or substantial cooling prowess (even blocking the side vents didn't help) as I expected, and that this rig seems rather insensitive to any fan arrangement (from violent positive pressure to mild negative one) when more than just one case fan is used. Whether it improves, it does slightly, letting me feel a little peculiar & annoyed.

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